The Santa Clarita Valley Food Pantry was granted $30,000 for a “refresh and restore” of its facilities by Albertson’s Companies Inc. on Friday.
Joanne Ainsworth, executive director of the SCV Food Pantry, said Albertson’s helped pay for a “safer, healthier, more efficient and just better for everyone” environment.
“And so, the things that they helped us work on were: We had a painting refresh, a lighting refresh. The lights were old and very dark. It was dark in there. We had a refresh of the front where we serve our clients. We were able to get new doors … It’s a little more friendly to our clients,” Ainsworth said.
She added that, with this remodel, everything is much more efficient to help serve people.
“The other thing they helped us do was to remodel the office … now the office has been repainted and refreshed as well. So, it’s just an all in all, really positive refresh for an old building that we’re still in,” Ainsworth said.
Albertson’s also provided the SCV Food Pantry with a restock for necessities like food.
“We had members of corporate from Fullerton come up for the morning as well as a lot of local Vons and Albertson’s managers and staff visit the pantry and then we were able to choose from a list of foods that they provided to us that day,” Ainsworth said. “It was, I think it was about four pallets of food. Four or five. And yeah, and they helped us restock the shelves.”
Ainsworth said it was an honor to receive this grant because it proves that the Food Pantry is doing what it should be doing every day.
“Our hard work is paying off by, you know, we’re feeding upwards of 10,000 people a month right now. And it just really feels good that all the hard work that myself and my staff are (putting) into kind of rebranding and refreshing the pantry for Santa Clarita, is being recognized by, you know, a national brand,” Ainsworth said.
